Dolores Huerta, Labor Activist

“When TIME Magazine ran a cover story in 1969 about the then-ongoing grape boycott, organized in part by the United Farm Workers in an effort to address working conditions among the laborers who picked those grapes in California, Dolores Huerta was there — sort of.

She was described in the story as the “tiny, tough assistant” of UFW leader Cesar Chavez. In reality, however, while Chavez was the head of the organization, Huerta was far more than an assistant. She and Chavez worked together in laying the groundwork for the union in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She worked directly with the farmworkers for whom the group advocated, and also in the state capital as their legislative advocate. She risked her life for her activism, is credited with coining the slogan “Yes, we can,” and along the way raised 11 children, many of whom have become activists in their own rights. In 2012, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom”…

… “Where do you see American activism going next?

I think we’re in a critical moment. We have all of these tools that are accessible to us now. All this knowledge we have, they can’t hide to truth from us. But at the same time, I’ve been following the movie around this country this last year just to get across this notion that we have to end racism, we have to end misogyny, we have to end homophobia, we have to end bigotry and looking down on our working people. We have to do it through our educational system.We’ve got to include, from pre-K, the contributions of people of color in our schools today, beginning with Native Americans, whose land we took and have never compensated them for, to the African slaves who built the White House and Congress, and then the immigrants who came from Mexico and tilled the land and built the railroads and then the Japanese, the Chinese, people from India, the Latinos, all these people who built the infrastructure of our country. And the contributions of the labor movement! How many people know how we got to eight-hour days? This should all be included in our educational system, so we can get a big giant eraser and erase the ignorance that we have right now in the United States of America”.

“It’s important to note that these teacher uprisings, particularly the ones in Arizona and Oklahoma, are taking place largely on Facebook. Teachers’ unions, for the most part, are playing a support role—all four of these states have right-to-work laws, meaning that the unions there don’t have a strong hold over educators.

“They don’t really care about the victims’ families,” Hunter added.” I don’t know what this is about but it’s definitely not about mourning individuals.”

Tom McDonalds comments:

Is the public willing to be held hostage by the public servants that the public funds? IF these public servants had a cause to protest against, it would be FOR advanced, relevant, sustained student success outcomes FOR ALL STUDENTS and closing the education gap which contributes to societal violence.

MONEY is not why all students are not empowered with success. Poor pedagogy is. Money will not fix poor pedagogy and close the education gap, no matter how many traditional educators rob the public by not showing up for work and by resisting positive, research based, best practices, changes, that measurably advance relevant, sustained, student success performance improvement outcomes, for all students.

Are WE okay funding traditional educator, single issue, activism, on school time, teaching all of us all of the wrong life lessons?

Here are the life lessons that traditional education has recently taught us:

Student success for all students, and closing the education gap that is a contributor to societal violence, are not important.

The trees are more important than the forest.

The facts don’t matter.

Don’t ever take ownership of a problem, especially if you contribute to that problem.

Blindly follow someone else’s cause.

A single issue — gun control — is more important than solving the real problem: societal and school violence.

Be a naysayer of any positive solutions presented. Stick to your single-issue cause at all costs .

Don’t ever offer a viable solution to the problem.

Muddy the issues. Don’t make them clear and understandable.

When folks disagree with your position, attack them personally.

Never have a rational conversation, purely based upon facts.

Traditional education, funded by the public on school time, has become single-issue advocacy. Such education is teaching all of us, by example, all of the wrong life lessons.

And we wonder why all students can’t function in real life? Wonder no more.